Decision panels/SOAS

Origin

A 12-person Sugar-on-a-Stick (SoaS) decision panel was appointed by a September 25, 2009 Oversight Board decision.

Members

• Sebastian Dziallas
• Luke Faraone
• Martin Dengler
• Bill Bogstad
• Faisal Khan
• Benjamin M. Schwartz
• Samuel Klein
• Sean Daly
• Tabitha Roder
• Caryl Bigenho
• Daniel Drake
• Abhishek Indoria

Procedures

The Decision Panel procedures were adopted.

Discussion took place on the SoaS mailing list with subject lines beginning with the text "[DP]".

Report

this is a draft

Introduction

This constitutes the report of the SoaS decision panel (DP), convened by SLOB.

The structure of this report is:

1. Introduction (this section)
2. Executive Summary
3. Mandate
4. Members
5. Report on Questions 1-3
6. Conclusion
7. Appendices

Executive Summary

The Decision Panel was mandated to answer three questions. The Decision Panel's answers are below:

Question 1: "Should Sugar Labs be a GNU/Linux distributor, rather than just an upstream producing Sugar releases?"

Answer: No, not now. SL is not now a full-service GNU/Linux distributor but 1) many contributors volunteer to help with individual tasks thereof; and 2) an official plan is part of a number of SugarLabs' members plans.

Question 2: "Should SL be neutral about distributions containing Sugar, and refuse to endorse one over another?"

Answer: No. Sugar On a Stick, the Fedora-derived distribution, will be the endorsed distribution.

Question 3: "Should 'Sugar on a Stick' be a phrase that SL asks its community to avoid using unless they refer to the SoaS-Fedora distribution?"

Answer: Yes.

In addition, the mandate allows the Decision Panel to raise and answer any other question the DP deems required to provide an answer to the original question: "Is the current SoaS going to be the primary way Sugar Labs distributes a Sugar-centric GNU/Linux distribution?" (Question 0).

The Decision Panel has not raised any additional questions.

Members

• Sebastian Dziallas
• Luke Faraone
• Martin Dengler
• Bill Bogstad
• Faisal Khan
• Benjamin M. Schwartz
• Samuel Klein
• Sean Daly
• Tabitha Roder
• Caryl Bigenho
• Daniel Drake
• Abhishek Indoria

Report on Questions 1-3

Question 1

Question 1: "Should Sugar Labs be a GNU/Linux distributor, rather than just an upstream producing Sugar releases?"

Answer: No, not now. SL is not now a full-service GNU/Linux distributor but 1) many contributors volunteer to help with individual tasks thereof; and 2) an official plan is part of a number of SugarLabs' members plans.

Question 2

Question 2: "Should SL be neutral about distributions containing Sugar, and refuse to endorse one over another?"

Answer: No. Sugar On a Stick, the Fedora-derived distribution, will be the endorsed distribution.

Question 3

Question 3: "Should 'Sugar on a Stick' be a phrase that SL asks its community to avoid using unless they refer to the SoaS-Fedora distribution?"

Answer: Yes.

Appendicies

Votes / Recorded opinions

Question 1

Yes:

1. Sean Daly
2. Bill Bogstead
3. Abhishek Indoria

No:

1. Martin Dengler

Undecided:

Unknown:

1. Sebastian Dziallas
2. Luke Faraone
3. Faisal Khan
4. Benjamin M. Schwartz
5. Samuel Klein
6. Tabitha Roder
7. Caryl Bigenho
8. Daniel Drake

Question 2

Yes:

1. Martin Dengler

No:

1. Abhishek Indoria
2. Tabitha Roder

Undecided:

Unknown:

1. Sebastian Dziallas
2. Luke Faraone
3. Martin Dengler
4. Bill Bogstad
5. Faisal Khan
6. Benjamin M. Schwartz
7. Samuel Klein
8. Caryl Bigenho
9. Daniel Drake

Question 3

Yes:

1. Sean Daly
2. Abhishek Indoria

No:

1. Martin Dengler

Undecided:

1. Bill Bogstad (dependent on answer to question #1)

Unknown:

1. Sebastian Dziallas
2. Luke Faraone
3. Faisal Khan
4. Benjamin M. Schwartz
5. Samuel Klein
6. Tabitha Roder
7. Caryl Bigenho
8. Daniel Drake
9. Abhishek Indoria

Further ideas

Potential naming conventions

• Sugar4CD/PC/F11 (Sugar, version 4, made for liveCD, runs on PCs, Fedora11 based) - example from Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho@hotmail.com>

There has been much talk of whether we should name with different foods and animals. Types of sugar (sucrose, glucose) has been suggested due to its link to sustainability of life. There still seems to be much sense in keeping it simple with SoaS keeping one name with a version release number and corresponding release name.